I am OK with GM bailout. On a precondition that is. All GM employees accept a 50% wage cut until are done paying back the loan. That’s not too drastic. Most of the country already gets paid less than half of the lowest paid union workers and definetly less than management.
Not only that, but the union contract has to be renegotiated from seniority to skill based meritocrocy. This way we will not have $35 an hour employees whom we cannot redeploy even at $12.
The industry desperately needs these structural changes and while it will hurt for a while, we will all be better of for it.
This is how the management could sell it to the union: In exchange for a merit based contract, with substancially lower initial wages, the Union receives a seat on the board of directors and all management and supervisory positions become open to unionization. The Union doubles its membership and gains additional influence. In exchange, the company gets a Union that works with it not against it. It creates a transparent compensation structure that allows people to know what they need to do to make more money, and thus to control their own destiny.
2 responses so far ↓
1 mark c // Nov 30, 2008 at 4:54 pm
50 percent pay cut? dont think so! where not most the country. 50 percent, how can you raise a family on that. not drastic? let’s see. sell my home, my cars, move into a apartment. can’t support my children, pull my kid out of college, sounds like your single. the big 3 failed to change with market 20 years ago, wasted all the money we made them. got awarded for failing and we should take the hit for their mistakes? sounds like a plan to me. get out of dodge. NEXT PLAN!!!
2 Oleg // Nov 30, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Mark,
Thanks for writing.
The choices are you face are: no job at all, since your industry has completely calapsed, or you take a pay cut that puts your salary more in line with what others with similar skills get paid and more in line with the value that you are adding to the car.
What big 3 propose is that the rest of us sell our homes to pay for continued mismanagement and unrealistic wages of the GM employees.
The rest of the country does not owe it to you to support your house and your kids.
I have no problem with you making million dollars per hour if you add that much value to the rest of us, but frankly, GM’s bottom line for last decade (or three) is showing that it’s employees do not add nearly as much value as they consume.
On a different note, half GM’s problem is precisely the attitude of us vs. them. (The other being delusion that we can’t live without them).
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